Planning Imperfectly
January is here again, and I’m sitting in my office surrounded by dirt and seed trays, thinking, I should have planned this better. That familiar feeling creeps in. The one where, in hindsight, it feels like there were a thousand small things I could have done differently to feel more prepared right now. As a farmer and a mom of five, I still have to pause, take a deep breath, and remind myself of something I’ve learned over and over again. Planning has to be fluid.
Here on the farm, planning is never rigid. It’s responsive. It’s imperfect. And it’s constantly interrupted. Animals get sick. Weather shifts. Equipment breaks. Kids need snacks, help with math, or emotional support at the exact moment I thought I’d finally sit down and focus. A lesson from my teaching days that has followed me straight into motherhood and farm life is this. You need a plan, and you also need to expect that your plan will go awry. Not always in big, disastrous ways, but it will almost never go exactly as written. And that’s okay. Planning to be interrupted is often the only way to stay steady when it happens.
As moms, we feel this pressure to plan everything out perfectly. We’re supposed to meal prep, schedule appointments, manage school events, keep routines consistent, and somehow make it all look effortless. The truth is, with so much to juggle, it’s impossible not to make some sort of plan. We have to. The key isn’t avoiding planning. It’s staying grounded when things don’t unfold perfectly and understanding that this is not a personal failure. It’s normal.
In my experience, the good stuff still happens even when the plan isn’t perfectly executed. Growth still comes. In the flower field, if I accidentally plant all of my snapdragon seedlings in the bed I had labeled for bells of Ireland, it’s going to be fine. The soil has been prepped. The conditions are right. The plants will still grow, even if my piece of paper says they’re in the “wrong” spot. Some days, the bed I carefully mapped out just isn’t ready when I get there, and I have to pivot and choose another space that will work. And that’s the key. It will work.
I’ve written before about finding freedom in the margins of your day, and the same idea applies to your schedule. Think guideline instead of checklist. When you plan your week, loosely assign tasks to days, but leave room for error. If you get interrupted on Tuesday, make sure there’s flexibility later in the week to circle back. Some weeks, I intentionally plan an entire day of margin time because I just know interruptions are coming. Planning for that reality keeps me from feeling behind before the week even ends.
I often compare planning to a quick pickup of our house. We have baskets lined along our long hallway, each one labeled for a room or a child. When the clutter starts to feel overwhelming, we grab the baskets and toss everything into its general category. The toys aren’t truly put away. Nothing is perfectly organized. But the floor is clear, and instantly, the house feels calmer. That small win creates space to think clearly about the next step. The same is true with planning. It doesn’t have to solve everything. It just has to move you forward enough to breathe again.
This is exactly how I think about our bouquet subscriptions too. They’re planned with this same mindset. They’re meant to remove effort, not add another task to your list. We handle the growing, the arranging, and the delivery. You don’t need to remember to stop somewhere, make a decision, or add one more thing to your already full week. The beauty shows up for you, steady and reliable, even when the rest of life feels a little scattered.
Planning doesn’t have to be rigid to be effective. It doesn’t need to be perfect to be meaningful. Sometimes, it just needs to offer a little structure, a little margin, and a gentle way forward.
